Senior Manager, Dorm Category

Lola Blankets • New York, NY

21d • Hybrid

About The Position

Lola Blankets is seeking a Senior Manager, Dorm Category to build and grow its college and dorm business. The role owns Dorm’s day-to-day performance and helps turn an emerging opportunity into a repeatable, scalable business. The Senior Manager will develop a deep understanding of college students and the parents or gift-givers shopping for them, create the category’s go-to-market calendar, and coordinate execution across Marketing, Product, Creative, Ecommerce, Finance, Operations, and Retail.

Because Dorm is highly seasonal, the role will build a playbook for what to sell and when and how students discover, consider, and purchase products for college. The position reports to the Director of Emerging Categories & Markets. Candidates in New York or Utah are preferred, with the ability to work hybrid in Lola’s offices three days per week.

Requirements

• 5–7+ years of experience in brand marketing, integrated marketing, category management, ecommerce, consumer growth, or business strategy.
• Experience building or growing a category, consumer segment, seasonal business, or emerging business unit.
• Strong understanding of Gen Z consumers, culture, social media, creators, and community-led marketing.
• Strong commercial instincts and comfort using performance data to make decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex cross-functional initiatives and execute against immovable seasonal deadlines.
• Comfort operating with ambiguity, testing quickly, and building processes where they do not yet exist.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to turn category needs into clear briefs and actionable plans.
• Excitement about building a new customer and occasion for Lola from the ground up.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with highly seasonal businesses, back-to-school, retail, campus marketing, or youth-focused brands.

Responsibilities

• Own the day-to-day growth plan for the Dorm category, translating goals and KPIs set with the Director of Emerging Categories & Markets into an actionable roadmap.
• Track revenue, customer acquisition, conversion, product performance, channel mix, and other key metrics.
• Understand the Dorm customer, including college students and parents or gift-givers, and identify differences from Lola’s core customer.
• Identify seasonal opportunities and performance gaps, recommend actions, and capture learnings to improve the playbook year over year.
• Own the Dorm marketing calendar around college decision season, graduation, summer planning, move-in, back-to-school, and gifting.
• Coordinate with Integrated Marketing, Creative, Ecommerce, CRM, Media, Social, Influencer, PR, and Retail to develop a cohesive customer journey.
• Translate category needs into briefs and cross-functional asks, and develop and test Dorm-specific messaging, audiences, offers, bundles, landing experiences, and creative concepts.
• Identify channels and customer behaviors outside Lola’s traditional marketing playbook that could reach college consumers.
• Build expertise in college culture, Gen Z behavior, dorm trends, and the back-to-school landscape.
• Identify campus activation, ambassador, creator, student organization, gifting, sampling, and other community-led growth opportunities.
• Explore partnerships with universities, retailers, platforms, and complementary brands.
• Partner with Social, Influencer, and Creative teams to represent Lola authentically in relevant channels and cultural spaces.
• Monitor trends across campuses, social platforms, competitors, and the youth lifestyle landscape.
• Use customer feedback, performance data, social listening, competitor activity, and market research to inform the Dorm roadmap.
• Partner with Product and Merchandising on assortment, color, size, bundle, price-point, and product opportunities for college customers.
• Identify products and propositions with potential to become repeatable drivers of the Dorm business.
• Turn seasonal learnings into recommendations for the following year’s assortment and go-to-market strategy.
• Serve as the primary day-to-day point person for Dorm across Lola’s functional teams.
• Coordinate with Product, Finance, Operations, Inventory Planning, Retail, and Marketing to prepare for concentrated seasonal demand.
• Maintain the cross-functional roadmap and keep deliverables, decisions, and dependencies moving against deadlines.
• Prepare performance recaps and recommendations for the Director of Emerging Categories & Markets and senior leadership.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary and annual bonus based on company and individual performance.
• 21 days of paid vacation and all federal holidays.
• Full health benefits, including health, dental, vision, and mental health coverage.
• 16 weeks of paid birth parent leave and 8 weeks of paid non-birth parent leave.
• 55% off Lola Blankets for friends and family.
• Opportunities for career growth within Lola Blankets.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed